when the top 18" broke off. 9 lbs of drag and 30# seaguar.
i was informed from the shop i bought it that it would have to be sent directly to st croix with a check for $20 return shipping which i did. i recieved the following letter back from st croix...
i called the shop where i bought it and they were goin go to call st croix in my behalf, havent heard back from them as of yet. i even called myself to speak with the man that declined warranty. he now states that there is red paint on it near the break.
in my defense i take very good care of my stuff, all my rods are in a holder at my house, i have a rod holder in the back of my truck, and there are plenty on the boat. and the only thing i own with RED PAINT is my car which the rod has never been near.
THESE RODS SAY THEY HAVE A WARRANTY BUT THEY REALLY DO NOT.
I have the Motherload of LOOMIS rods spin,fly,casting etc and have broken quite a few of em one way or another
I pay 10% of the retail and they send me a new one, this is a lifetime guarantee and have had no problems so far.
Building facilities manager and (part time)charter capt
Rods
Swivel,
I have broken some Penn rods but only after years of use & abuse.
Sorry to hear about the poor service follow-up and possibly quality on
the St. croix but you still landed the fish. Nice work! I have been buying
Starr rods (spinning &trolling) for some time now and the quality and durabilty
for the price is excellent. I also had a good coversation with a rep from Chaos at the last white marlin Open here in OC and they seem eager to please also at good prices. rthanks for the heads up on the St. C's.
Interesting you say this... Last year we were bailing dolphin under a floating log. In the heat of the moment my uncle placed his St. Croix rod in a rocket launcher while he still had bait in the water (I forget what he was doing). A peanut dolphin came up, grabbed his bait, and made a little run.. the pressure snapped his rod down below the reel seats.
He tried to send it back to St. Croix under his warranty and they said "it is not recomended to leave them in rocket launchers"... No kidding, but a 1# dolphin should not have busted his rod. Anyways, Bass Pro came up big and gave him store credit since St. Croix wouldnt help him out.
You think they would do more for customer loyalty and promotion by word of mouth... Not a bad idea since fisherman love to buy tackle and then love to talk about it.
*This story is coming from a person who whacks his nuts to his St. Croix fast action 4-10 lb bass spinning rod.
I sent my st croix rod back last month and they sent me a brand new rod...i just paid for shipping and they sent me the rod...i told them that it broke from a little striper (which it did but we had a mad go overboard and i threw the rod down causing it to chip) and they just sent me a new rod
That's ashame. St. Croix in the past has been outstanding in their warrently claims. I hope they don't change this as this is what people come to know and why I continue to stand behind their products.
Speaking of busting rods...I have a Cape Fear that bit the dust on a Blue fish! The thing sounded like it exploded. We'll see how they stand behind their warrenty!
What did you have your drag set on? Why are you fishing an MX 6 for bottom fish? Ideally you should be fishing either a 2 speed or an MXL or LX 4. Don't get me wrong, that MXL 6 is brutal, last summer I landed an 11 foot hammerhead on an MXL 6, it is a very powerful reel, but it really is not designed to fish the bottom. My reel was spooled with 50 LB test Jerry Brown Spectra, the rod was one of our first Sceptre prototypes that was really designed for both sailfish and kings.
Avet drags are very exponential out of the box. I think I may have a solution to your problem. I have no idea what size St. Croix rod you have, but the drag at the time the rod broke is an important factor. We designed an Avet Drag modification that will make the drag less exponential. This modification will work on the SX, MXL, MXJ, LX, and JX. My drag modification will allow you to fish 2 LBS at strike and 4 at full, ideal for Sails, Kings, Stripers, and others. The modification will NOT affect your overall max drag setting. Feel free to email me for further information: Louis@bluemarlinchronicles.com. I also have a video on my website that will explain the drag update. You will find it under the Avet Reels section. I am currently in South Carolina but will be returning to Florida on Tuesday, give me a shout I will be happy to help you out.
I've tried to cut back building any rods with their blanks because of problems I have experienced with them over the last couple of years. The quality seems to be getting worse and their customer or I should say lack of customer service was terrible. They pretty much gave me the same run around really turned me off. I had a defective blank that I was building for myself that I didn't realise until after I had the grips and real seat glued up. No guides at this point, I noticed a crack in the female portion of the two pc blank when I was laying out the guides, they still made me send them a blank back with a $20 check to send it back to me......cost me an extra $35 bucks for their defect.....nice customer service..... I felt good about supporting a company close to where I was raised in the mid west, not anymore. And people wonder why jobs get shipped overseas.....
BCM, 9 lbs of drag, 30# leader that did NOT break. the rod is a musky rated at 36-80 lbs. the way i see it, the weakest point of the rig goes to the leader which held up fine. as for the reel, i find it perfect for drumfish and i intend to use it for tilefish in the deep. it is loaded with about 100 yards (give or take) of 30# mono and topped off with 500 yards of 65# power pro. you said a better reel would be a mxl. thats what i am using. its an mxl6. they also have an mxl4, the difference being the retrieve ratio.
as for the rod, i have been back and forth with st croix, the shop called them, and its over and i lose. i will never buy st croix again or shop at the store i bought it. not that its their fault, but i strongly believe that if they complained hard enough, st croix would have listened being they probably buy a ton of rods from them.
I was getting ready to start glueing grips on to a St. Croix blank, I start wiping the area down with denatured alchohol and the finish starts coming off, WTF!!!! I end up wiping the entire blank down for 15 minutes removing all the black finish. Would have sent it back, but by the time I dealt with A-holes at St. Croix and paid the shipping fees the cost of the blank would have doubled. How is a rod builder supposed to make any money when crap like this happens?
Incidently, my brother has had the same thing happen to him on a couple of blanks of theirs......
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